


Many Lives

by numinousnumbat



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:43:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numinousnumbat/pseuds/numinousnumbat
Summary: Magnus has loved Alec in every lifetime.





	Many Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death, kind of? ... spoilers in the [End Notes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13172919#work_endnotes).
> 
> This is an AU in that I’m using very little from Magnus's backstory, but other than that, it could (almost) take place in the same world as "Shadowhunters."

Magnus was slightly less than a hundred years old - old for a human but the blink of an eye for an immortal - when he met him for the first time. The man was practicing archery - he was often an archer - in a forest somewhere in western Prussia. Magnus was drawn to this man and his soul: his essence was so beautiful and pure that it overshadowed the body he was in. Magnus had places to be, but was compelled to stop and at least talk to him. By the end of the conversation, he knew that this could be the love of a lifetime. His name was Alexander and Magnus followed him back to his home, a home of warriors descended from angels. The leaders knew what warlocks were, and Magnus spun a tale of a vicious attack and the lengthy recovery he needed and offered his powers to them for a place to recover. They had to agree as smallpox had taken some of their best and their runes weren’t working. Magnus couldn't save everyone, but he could save some. 

Magnus was allowed to sleep in the barn with the animals, and he and Alexander were often able to sneak away, just the two of them. Alexander told him about his angelic blood, his runes and his stele, and hundreds of other secrets. Magnus did the same, and for the first time, someone looked into his eyes and loved him not despite his warlock mark, but because of it.  
  
Alexander and Magnus proved themselves to be a formidable team against the vampires that were ravaging the countryside, and Alexander lamented that he could only form a parabatai bond with another Shadowhunter. Magnus showed him that lying together as husband and wife lie together was a different kind of bond, and later they made vows to each other under a full moon near the summer solstice.  
  
One spring after he and Alexander had shared a bed for nearly fifty years, Magnus left on a voyage. Alexander was a respected representative to the Council now. His mind was as sharp as ever, but his body, after years of training and fighting, was starting to wear down. A knee that was sore all winter, his wrist swollen after years of drawing a bow, and the healing runes weren't working like they used to. Even Magnus’s magic couldn't arrest old age forever.  
  
Which was why Magnus found himself traveling back to his homeland, on a ship bound for Java. He remembered the whispers and stories of an ancient being who could grant any wish. It had been over a century and his native tongue was strange out of his mouth, but he quickly picked it back up and after only a few weeks, found himself knocking on the door of a house on the outskirts of a bustling fishing village. A very old woman answered on the third knock, and Magnus offered her the finest goods of his adopted land, which she accepted and led him into her small but comfortable home.  
  
"You’ve come a long way, Magnus Bane," she said.  
  
"I have, _Eyang,_ " he replied. "And I hope my journey hasn’t been in vain."  
  
"Name what you seek, and I will tell you whether or not you have journeyed in vain."

"Like what I hear about you, I also will live forever, and I wish for Alexander - my lover, my soulmate - to live with me forever."  
  
"I could make it so you die at the same moment," she said, tilting her head to the side. "Very easy, small payment."  
  
"I wish it were that easy," Magnus said, barely able to think about Alexander's death. "But we will not be joined in the next world. He has the blood of angels and I am fathered by a demon. We can only be together here."  
  
She nodded. "An uncommon problem, for sure." She was silent for a moment. "Most people come here for revenge or power or to force the love of someone that is not theirs. True love is rare." She was silent for a while longer, and Magnus didn't interrupt. "I am not all-powerful," she said. "I have my limits the way you have yours. I do not have the power to grant a Nephilim immortality in the same way you have your immortality."  
  
Magnus’s heart sank. "Can you tell me where to go to find someone who can do such a thing?" he pleaded. "I will go anywhere, do anything."  
  
"I have seen this," the woman said. "But your Alexander doesn’t have that kind of time, I’m afraid." Magnus felt fear in the pit of his stomach. The woman continued, "Do not blame yourself, you’ve needed this time to love him, all of him, not just the attractive young man he was or even the celebrated leader he grew into. You needed to love all of the versions of him in order to be here and swear you love him in his entirety."  
  
She paused, and Magnus scarcely let himself breathe. "Yes, that will do. I can grant you your wish because you have proven that you love all of his versions. And I will give you your lifetime to love all of the versions that come next." She nodded. "It is done, go home to your Alexander. Love him the way he deserves to be loved."  
  
"I’m not sure I understand," Magnus said.  
  
The woman smiled softly. "You will someday. But go now and you will just catch the ship back to Amsterdam."  
  
"Thank you,  _Eyang,_ " Magnus said. "I am yours when you need me."

###

Even though it had been scarcely a year since Magnus left Alexander and their small stone cottage, Alexander looked like he had aged a decade or more. The years were catching up quickly, and Magnus hadn’t been around with his magic to help stall anything.  
  
"Did you find what you were looking for?" was the only question Alexander asked.  
  
"I hope so," Magnus replied.  
  
Alexander died in his sleep in the winter before his eightieth year. Magnus was devastated and it felt like his broken heart would never heal. He would have cursed the old woman or gone back to find her, but he knew there was no point. Death was death was death.  
  
He existed in a daze for years, drifting in and out of life. He found himself walking the roads that he had walked with Alexander, and eating the foods they had both liked. Alexander wouldn’t have wanted him to be sad; he had told Magnus time and time again that the only way he wanted his memory honored was for Magnus to truly live the lifetime he was given. "Love again," had been his final words to Magnus.  
  
It was down one of these roads decades later that Magnus, still finding his way back from grief, saw a young man with a stride that said he needed to be somewhere important. He was beautiful and serious and carried himself like a warrior. Magnus allowed himself to look and enjoy, just for the moment.  
  
"Can you see me?" the man asked Magnus.  
  
"Of course I can," Magnus replied.

The man rolled up his sleeve, muttering, "Why isn’t it working?" and Magnus spotted a rune.

Magnus reached out his hand. "Brother, I am a friend to the Shadowhunters," and as his fingers touched the man's fingers, he could feel a familiar soul reaching out to him from an unfamiliar body.    
  
The man didn't seem to react to Magnus's touch. "Friend of the Shadowhunters, you say? It’s a dangerous world out there and we need all the friends we can get." He shook Magnus's hand. "Johan."  
  
"Magnus," Magnus replied. "I was about to get supper at a tavern up the road, allow me to buy you a meal or some mead."  
  
Johan was giving Magnus a strange look. "I don’t normally do this, but I trust you."  
  
Magnus tried to hide his smile. "You can trust me," he said. "On my life."  
  
And everything the old woman had told him slotted into place. Alexander would be reborn in a different body with no memory of his past lives and it was up to Magnus to find him each time.  
  
Johan died a few years later, protecting a young mother and her tiny baby from a werewolf. A few years after that, Magnus would meet William as a tiny baby himself, a baby born two months too early in the coldest season, and Magnus kept him alive with magic and love.   
  
Alexander was usually a Shadowhunter and so Magnus made his services available to the different Shadowhunter Institutes that sprang up with cities. He was able to find Alexander - by whatever name he was called that lifetime - many times that way. Once they passed each other on the streets of Prague and a brush of their shoulders was enough for Magnus to know. 

###

Magnus met Charles on what was to be Charles's deathbed. The village had gathered their spare coins - there weren't many of them - but Magnus had learned to be generous from his Alexanders, and the village wanted Magnus to save Charles. Charles didn't know that he had angelic blood, or that this blood was the only reason he had survived the snake bite. Magnus arrived late, much too late. He gave the villagers back their coins and asked that they bury Charles next to his mother instead. Charles had lived the solitary life of a shepherd; he had never laid with someone, and Magnus held him for the four days it took the venom to take him. Charles said that he was glad that he finally knew what it was like to have the love of a lover.  
  
"I have loved you your whole life and then some," Magnus said. "I wish I had found you earlier."  
  
"We came so close to not meeting each other at all," Charles said. "But we did find each other, and that is enough."

###

Once Alexander ends up with the wrong sort of body, and he is as angry at the world for not allowing him to be the warrior he is as he is angry at the body parts that don’t match what he knows they should be. Magnus makes love to him and whispers what he know he's liked to hear in the past, even if the sensations are different.  
  
Sometimes society is more on their side and their love can be an indiscrete, clandestine affair. Sometimes society has cycled backward and even thinking about their sort of love is death, or worse. Sometimes they risk it and sometimes they don’t.  
  
Sometimes Magnus doesn’t tell Alexander about their shared past, but usually he does. He wants no secrets between them.  
  
Sometimes Alexander has taken a wife - or worse, a lover - before Magnus finds him, and Magnus contents himself with a lifetime of friendship. Knowing Alexander is happy is more than enough.  
  
The last life was bad. Michael wasted away with a disease that everyone ignored and blamed on sexual orientation, as if _love_ could cause such a thing. Magnus's powers could only ameliorate the pain a little and he watched this man he had fallen in love with so many times reduced to skin and bones. But Michael battled AIDS as bravely as he had battled any demon.

###

It now has been thirty years, and Magnus knows he is finally ready to find his Alexander again. He's the High Warlock of Brooklyn, so he can start at the local Institute. 

But before Magnus can start his search, Alexander finds him, at a club of all places. He's a Lightwood, this time. He’s been a Lightwood before, and Magnus wonders how many times he’ll be a Lightwood again.  
  
But Alec? Oh no, this time he’ll be Magnus’s Alexander again, just like the first time. He’s older than some he’s met before, but seems so young in this day and age. They could get married this time, not just whispered vows in a deserted forest clearing. The possibilities are staggering.

###

Isabelle Lightwood looks at Magnus calculatingly over her drink. “It’s interesting to finally meet you,” she says, swirling the drink around her martini glass. “I actually studied your history with the Shadowhunters as my specialty during training.” 

“Oh,” Magnus says, eyebrow cocked. He hadn't realized that he'd be of any interest.  
  
“Yeah, I found it strange that this one warlock from who knows when would associate so freely with us. Based on some rumors and some reading between the lines, I thought I had figured you out. But now I see you here playing footsie with my brother and I have a new theory.” She smirks while glancing back and forth between Magnus and Alec.  
  
“I doubt very much that we want to hear this,” Magnus says dryly.  
  
“You have a Shadowhunter fetish,” she says with a toss of her hair. “It’s the only explanation.”  
  
Magnus throws his head back and laughs. “Wrong,” he says.  
  
“Tell me then, Warlock,” Izzy says, staring at Magnus.   
  
“It’s not my story to tell,” Magnus says, walking the fine line of Izzy's curiosity. “It’s Alexander’s.”  
  
Alec looks surprised. “I don’t know anything, Magnus, we haven't even known each other that long.”  
  
“It’s a story for another time,” Magnus says, ending the subject for the night.   
  
But Alec doesn’t let it go and even though they’ve only known each other this time for a few weeks, Magnus finds himself telling Alec everything.  
  
Alec veers back and forth between belief and disbelief. “You know when you’ve never been to somewhere before and you know where everything is? Or you're following a path you've never been on and you know where it leads anyway? That’s how you feel to me, like coming home,” Alec says.

Magnus smiles, only a little sad. "Yes, that's it. Same for me, too." 

"Every time?" Alec looks at Magnus so openly.

"Every time." Alec lays his hand on top of Magnus's hand and Magnus lets himself fully be in this moment with Alec. 

###

  
“I’m sorry I have a parabatai already,” Alec says one night after making love. “I would have waited for you if I had known.”  
  
Magnus rolls to his side and looks at Alec, smiling in the memory of all of the times he's had this conversation. “That’s not how love works." He interlaces their fingers together. "You don’t have some set amount of love to give and when you reach your quota you’re done. I’m glad you have a parabatai, someone to protect you and keep you safe in battle. It also makes it easier for your new body to know how to bond with my body, the way our magic aligns together.”

Alec is looking at Magnus like he can see his soul. Maybe he can. "I wish there was a way that I could stay with you, so you don't have to be lonely when I die."

"There are ways," Magnus says with a small shrug. It's been an area of interest to him for centuries, of course. 

"Well, let's do it," Alec says, his face lighting up. 

Magnus laughs and then looks over at Alec's face. "Oh, you're serious." His heart is doing something strange. 

"Why haven't the other Alecs done it?" he asks. "Is it evil or something?" 

"Well, no, it's just that no one's asked before," Magnus says. 

"And you didn't think to offer?" Alec sits up with the force of the thought, looking down at Magnus. 

"Immortality is a gift, yes, but sometimes a curse, too." Magnus rubs Alec's shoulder gently. 

"Well, I want to do it," Alec says. He lays back down and arranges the pillow behind his head. "I don't want us to be separated ever again." 

Magnus is rarely speechless, but words have completely failed him. He props himself up to kiss Alec on the lips, and then lays back down, his head on Alec's broad shoulder. "We'll talk about it, I promise," he says, his mind full of ideas and spells and a new kind of hope, a future with Alexander that he could only have dreamed of centuries ago.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Major character death spoilers:** In this story, Alec is reborn when he dies. He has no knowledge of it, but Magnus does. The current Alec Lightwood does not die.
> 
> ###
> 
>  **Actual end notes:** Thank you for reading! I'm so ready for Season 3; this hiatus has been too long, I miss this show. 
> 
> My first draft of this was very different and I fiddled and fiddled and I think there might have been some subconscious inspiration from Hwei Lim’s [“25 Lives”](http://s2b2.livejournal.com/142934.html) and I wanted to acknowledge that. The "I don't know why, but I trust you" bit is paraphrased from Episode 2x18. 
> 
> I hadn't come across anyone on AO3 using _Nephil_ as the singular form of _Nephilim_ , so I used _Nephilim_ as a singular here, too. 
> 
> I am on [tumblr](https://numinousnumbat.tumblr.com/). Speaking of, this beautiful [gif set](https://numinousnumbat.tumblr.com/post/167334374783/alec-magnvs-insp) reminded me of this story.


End file.
